“I made a commitment at that moment to use my art to raise awareness and inspire action to protect and restore the lifeblood of our planet, the rainforests.

In the past 20 years, 63 million acres of forest cover have been lost, about the size of the state of Colorado. Almost half of the critical lowland forest that was left was destroyed, endangering many species, including orangutans.

As Borneo continues to diminish, the rainforest is losing its ability to sequester carbon. For instance, in 2015, widespread burning of peatlands in Borneo and Sumatra released an estimated 1.75 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, equivalent to the annual emissions of Japan. In some months that year, the daily CO2 emissions even exceeded those of the entire US economy.

One of the organizations that inspired this project and is making a significant impact in Borneo is Health in Harmony. Through a practice they call Radical Listening, they asked rainforest communities what they needed to end the logging. The answer was affordable healthcare and training in organic farming. Health In Harmony puts resources directly into the hands of these communities, the true experts and guardians of the forest, and deforestation has fallen as a result.